Readers Write (Jan. 4): Gun violence, nuclear power, Minneapolis' image, hockey safety

I'm surprised at the lack of public outcry about the tragic shooting death of 3-year-old Terrell Mayes Jr.

Steven Pinker ("The Better Angels of Our Nature") and criminologist Franklin Zimring ("The City That Became Safe") report that violence and crime have decreased both globally and nationally, but another innocent child is a gunshot victim in Minneapolis.

A Star Tribune editorial ("Don't relax in the fight against violence," Dec. 29) admitted in small print that "it is too easy to get guns." Easy access to guns helps create criminals. If we want to quit smoking, we remove cigarettes from our homes. If we want to avoid obesity, we don't load up on fats and sugars. Let's go on a gun diet and get guns out of our neighborhoods.

Maybe our gun "tipping point" will come when a 3-year-old victim lives in Wayzata.

SHERRY MACHEN, Wayzata

• • •

Peaceful neighborhoods start within each home. Parents need to fight for the lives of their children as well as the child next door. This letter is not addressed to the victims, but to the families whose children carry guns. You have the support of the community; now take the steps within you own homes to create a culture of nonviolence. Terrell's death should push every parent to examine their role and take personal responsibility.

* * *

The Jan. 2 commentary by Llewellyn King ("Even after a tsunami, nuclear power is not a monster") severely understated the mortality associated with both nuclear power and fossil fuels.

An article in the December 2011 issue of the International Journal of Health Services, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, estimates that 14,000 people, mainly infants and people with compromised immune systems, will die premature deaths as a result of the radioactive plume from Fukushima.

To imply that no one died is to mislead the public about this highly toxic and ludicrously expensive technology, which is just a glorified way to boil water to turn turbines.

King also cites the deaths of coal miners to imply that nuclear power is safer. He neglects to mention that 40,000 people die every year from air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.

Neither technology is safe, and both are economic and environmental dead-ends. Imagine if windmills caused even 100 deaths per year. They would be banned in a heartbeat.

STEPHEN KRIZ, MAPLE GROVE

• • •

King claimed that nuclear power generation's "soft underbelly" is civilian power. No, the problem is that there is no known solution for nuclear waste. The half-life of this waste is sometimes in the millions of years. There are no safe-for-all-time storage or disposal methods for this radioactive material, and there is no scientific cure on the horizon.

BARBARA CRACRAFT, MINNEAPOLIS

I have lived here for more than 40 years, having grown up in Chicago. I still enjoy going downtown in Chicago, and I have always felt very safe there. I rarely go downtown in Minneapolis ("Refresh the reality, image of downtown," editorial, Jan. 2).

I have luckily never been robbed, but I have been harassed and subjected to vulgar behavior by young people (during the day or early evening); therefore, I have chosen to not spend my money in a volatile environment.

We need security personnel and police officers who will tell these people in no uncertain terms that if they can't conduct themselves like well-behaved citizens; they need to go elsewhere. I know many people from the suburbs who feel the same way that I do.

KATHY MCNEE, DEEPHAVEN

• • •

Mom-and-pop businesses along Lake Street and Nicollet and Central Avenues have brought life and vitality to those streets such as they once had in the streetcar era.

The big-box retailers and chain restaurants so plentiful in the suburbs are not what bring people downtown. That requires small retail spaces oriented to the sidewalk that family-owned businesses can afford to rent.

WILLIAM J. GRAHAM, BURNSVILLE

* * *

The Jan. 3 article about hockey's risks ("Coaches assail youth hockey's hits") brought tears to my eyes and my heartfelt prayers -- that Jack Jablonski will recover; that his family will be of good courage as it faces difficult days ahead; that the fine physicians and nurses at the Hennepin County Medical Center will perform their best work for this family, and that the young boy from Wayzata who was involved not blame himself for a random, unfortunate accident.

Bell-curve medical statistics may indeed support different checking rules for kids older than 12, but they provide little comfort to Jack and his family, or to the young Wayzata skater who was playing by the rules. Ban checks from behind and impose penalties harsh enough dissuade. What is the downside of doing so?